


Laying With Monsters

by BeansEtc



Category: Beauty and the Beast (1991), Beauty and the Beast - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Drama, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2017-03-23
Packaged: 2018-10-02 04:09:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10209323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeansEtc/pseuds/BeansEtc
Summary: The nights are long, and sometimes the Beast has trouble holding on to who he is.





	1. A Taste in the Mouth

The first time he’d brought back a deer he had run into her in the hall.  He remembers topping the flight of stairs and just rounding the corner on his way up through the castle — and suddenly there she’d been in the middle of the corridor, accompanied by Mrs. Potts, on their way down; two crossed paths at the most inopportune moment. 

It had been mere days since the woods and the wolves and her fingers carefully but nervously bandaging his arm, and while they had finally been on cautious talking terms the girl was still afraid of him.  He could smell the fear on her anytime he came upon her suddenly, the way a skittish horse recoils before a sinister shadow in the trees.  She had tried to hide it (out of politeness? pride?), but it’s hard to hide revulsion — it’s easier to just not look, he knows, which is why a mirror can no longer be found along the winding stretches of hallway leading to the west wing that has not been shattered or left with only broken shards remaining in its frame.

The Beast had stopped short when he’d seen her — _Belle_ , her name had still been new and strange on his tongue — and she in turn had froze at the appearance of him: hulking and massive with a hand the size of a dinner plate and claws like short sickled razors wrapped around the neck of the dead deer, an elegant little doe with a reddish brown coat, thick lashes, and big dark eyes staring up glassy and vacant.  It was the first time he had been out hunting since she had arrived at the castle, and he had been neither prepared nor sure how to go about his normal routines now that she was there.

They’d stood there in an uneasy silence that stretched and hummed like taut violin string, both regarding the other warily, neither entirely comfortable in each other’s presence yet.

Her gaze should have riled him.  He doesn’t like people looking at him, and her eyes had been darting all over and her stare so impudent and unabashed that in any other case it would have rankled him, even earned her a warning snarl.

Instead, in that instant of unexpectedly encountering her there on the landing, in the midst of returning from the hunt with his kill in hand, he had found himself gripped by something else entirely — a strange self-consciousness that he had not felt in years.

He had never had a problem with hunting.  He recalls his uncle taking him as a boy, vague memories that have blurred and faded over time like aged parchment paper, yellowed corners brittle to the touch.  They had been grand expeditions alongside a host of men from the court and an accompaniment of valets, a dozen hounds, and much fanfare; an exercise of sport and extravagance, and he had been taught how to shoot a musket.  He had been a clumsy shot, but a stubborn student, and after much determined practice he could finally hit a boar at thirty paces.  The blood had not bothered him and he’d hefted the animal up onto the wagon with the other men with a sense of pride and deepfelt belonging.

But then everything had changed — twisted and contorted with a single knock at the door one winter’s night and the curse that had sealed and stoppered his fate.  The hunt had continued but fanfare had had little to do with it any longer.  While the servants and other residents of the castle had been robbed of flesh and bone and mundane, daily susceptibilities like hunger, their master had still had to eat. 

In the beginning he had charged the responsibility of bringing in food on his head huntsman, an arrogant but skilled marksman who as a result of the enchantment was turned into an aptly wide-muzzled Blunderbuss; and who, with humbling help from other members of the household staff to prop him up, proved his aim to be as good as ever.  But they had run out of shot years ago and the gunpowder in his mouth had made the huntsman hack and cough, and so eventually the task had fallen to the Beast to provide for himself.

He had been forced to adapt.  Muskets were traded for brute strength, and lances and arrows were abandoned for claws and fangs.  Death could no longer be dealt at a distance of thirty paces, or twenty, or even ten, but against his chest and between his hands — and over time he had become so closely acquainted with the act of killing that it became second nature, and he could not remember why anyone would bother with gunpowder or steel.

As the years past, the rest of castle’s inhabitants had become used to, if not wholly comfortable with, his weekly forays into the forest and the sight of him dragging his grisly catches through the halls up to the west wing like a wolf to its lair; all the while leaving a trail of smeared crimson across the marble floors and rugs behind him that enchanted mops and brushes were quick to spring upon as he past so as not to let stain the carpet.

Early on there had still been enough pride left in him to feel the weight of his servants’ repugnance, to share in the sting of what he had been reduced to.  However, time chips away at mountains and can erode things like shock and self-respect, and more and more he’d begun ignoring the concerned glances and reproving looks.  Eventually he had ceased to care entirely.

But then the girl had arrived and she had stood there _staring_ at him, at the dead beautiful thing in his hand, and he’d suddenly couldn’t help but cringe and fold into himself as he imagined what she must see.

He had been a horrifying sight, no doubt: cape wet and stained, with mud and pine needles and dried leaves caught up in his matted fur.  His claws had still had blood on them.  He had still been able to taste it in his mouth.  _(He could taste it now still.)_   Hanging beside him, the doe’s empty black gaze had been turned heavenward; head twisted at an unnatural, impossible angle; tongue exposed; eyes bulging.  A series of long, ragged lacerations stretched across the back of the animal’s hide exposing glistening red muscle beneath.

The Beast remembers the way his stubby fingers had twitched at his side, trying to hide what he could of the most gruesome parts behind the tail of his cape, ashamed of that macabre sight of death and savagery born of his own hands; looking no doubt every inch the monster on the outside as he had felt at that moment on the inside.

There had been no movement, no words.  Just her staring at him and him trying not to directly meet her eyes, until eventually Mrs. Potts — ever the discerning mediator, ever the saint — had broken the silence in her no fuss, matronly way, suggesting he bring his catch down to the kitchens and then go get himself cleaned up for dinner.

He had waited there long after they had passed by and their footsteps had disappeared far off in the distance before he had finally turned and started his way back down again.

 

 

Weeks and months have passed since that day in the corridor, wherein unease in each other’s presence has melted into laughter and smiles, and distance has been bridged into a certain degree of closeness both in body and heart.  The Beast can still remember the look in her eyes as she had stared at him though, and it plagues him as he sits in the dark, picking meat off a bone from the haunch of venison sitting on a platter before him.

The sky is in turmoil again outside, another mid-winter storm that sends snow swirling past the windows and sets the wind howling through the eaves and whistling through cracks under doorways.  He has left the battered doors to his own balcony thrown open as is his custom, preferring the fresh air that is accompanied by the inevitable chill and snow to the stale, fetid smell of the room closed up.

Dinner had ended hours ago, and he and Belle had spent another hour or two reading together in the warm, fire-lit parlor before she had retired to her room for the night and he had returned to the darkness of the west wing.  The plate of food had been diligently set out and waiting for him.

Once again, he has had to adapt.

He continues to hunt; however, these days he restricts his forays to the early morning or late night when she’s asleep, and when he returns he drags his spoils around behind the kitchens to the back door of the larder where he doesn’t have to risk feeling her eyes on him, and where the only thing stained by the trail of blood is the snow.

It has been hard to break certain habits.  He has had to readjust to no longer bringing his kills right up with him to the west wing to consume; to having his food butchered and served to him; to sitting at a table once again, with dishes and utensils and all manner of civilized trappings that he is no longer rightly sized for.  He has only recently begun allowing them to even cook his meat once more, and he is ashamed to admit that he finds the taste jarring to his palate.  He dines with her each day without fail though — for the pleasure of her company, to be sure, and because he is determined to demonstrate to her (and himself) that he can be more than the animal he appears. 

Nevertheless, the tiny arranged portions of roast and ham, salads and soups, biscuits with jam, and sweet fruit tarts end up leaving him frustratingly hungry still; and so he has taken to receding to his chambers in between his meals with Belle in the dining room, and once there he waits for servants from the kitchen staff to come bearing additional plates filled with sizable cuts of game so he can properly eat his fill.

The extra protein is not so much a luxury as a necessity.  Whereas a single stag could feed her for months, his size and power requires substantially more to fuel it now and fruits and grains simply do not suffice.  His teeth and fangs are not made for chewing and grinding, but for tearing and shearing and swallowing whole.  It is not a matter a preference, but rather an unavoidable truth of what he has become.

And so he is driven again and again back out to the woods just as he has done so for years — only instead of hunting for himself alone, now he hunts for both of them.

He doesn’t mind.  Hunting for two mouths is no different than for one, and the task itself has never come as entirely unwelcome.  If anything, it is an excuse to escape for a time from the castle and its suffocating stone walls: he revels in the feeling of the earth beneath his paws, hunched over on all fours tasting the musty, sweet scent of wet leaves and disturbed soil, following the spoor of a stag or wild boar.  It is during those times that he finds it hard to remember that this is not his natural shape, that he was not born this way — so instinctive and inherently part of his nature the act has become to him.

But it’s the same wild rush that sends his senses into overdrive and his blood pumping through his veins that worries him as well.  Though he has never admitted it to another soul, he is alarmed by how natural a feeling it is.  He is even more alarmed that a part of him _relishes_ it — some rearing of the predatory creature deep within him that is as much a part of him now as the twisted horns on his head; that gets excited by the race of the hunt, is driven by the smell of fear, and laps hungrily at the hot blood of a kill.

There was a period not long ago before Belle arrived at the castle — before she had brought a hope and a lightness back in his breast — that the beast inside him had so thoroughly overtook what little remained of himself as a man that he’d found his tenuous grasp on his own mind slipping for hours at a time, and he would forget who he was and let himself ride on nothing more than his animal senses; surrendering himself entirely to smell and sound and instinct.

He is afraid of it.

It scares him even more than it undoubtedly unnerves the other residents of the castle — because while they can only see the outward changes in his nature, the bristling hair and the savage claws of the monster he is becoming more and more like with every petal that falls from the rose — he can feel it inside, clawing up within him and fighting to get out.  And more than anything he’s terrified that when it does, the bestial part of him will take over entirely and there won’t be any man left in him to save.

Amid that darkness swelling inside him, Belle has been a lighthouse. In the few short months that she has been here she has gifted him with her company, her compassion, and her friendship, and for that he will always be grateful.  He doesn’t know what exactly is growing between them, if she will ever seek to offer any more than she already has. . . but even if she never does, he will forever be in debt to her.

Because more vital than the hope she embodies unknowingly or the friendship she offers freely, she makes him remember what it is to be human — and he clings to it like a shipwreck survivor to a piece of ravaged driftwood upon the ocean.

It is why he hides up in his room to eat.  It is the reason he goes out of his way to conceal the most primal, animalistic parts of himself. . . because he doesn’t want to disappoint her.  He can’t bear the thought of seeing that look in her eyes again, the way she had looked at him clutching the dead doe that night up in the empty hallway.

He stares down at the plate of bones in front of him and something in his stomach turns.  Dropping the last of the meat he’s holding, he pushes the platter away with a grimace.  All of a sudden he has lost his appetite.

Turning away, he moves off to a shadowed spot beside the broken bed, its frame bent and doubled over like some twisted skeleton; sluffing off the heavy cape from his shoulders as he goes and pulling the white shirt up over his head until he’s wearing only a pair of breeches.  He digs around for a moment in the haphazard little mountain of rangy moth-eaten blankets, threadbare curtains, and shredded tapestries laying there in the corner before easing himself down and burrowing in among their folds, his stomach full and heavy, but unsettled.

Tomorrow he will have to go back into the woods again.  He will hunt and he will kill, and the beast inside him will sing, and then he will drag whatever dead thing he catches back to the castle before first dawn while Belle is still fast asleep.

It’s not the hunt itself that gnaws at him, he thinks, as his enormous, powerful hands flex next to him restlessly.  He has no problem with hunting.  In fact, he is happy to do it. . . he just wishes he had a _gun_. . .

Outside, the wind howls ferociously and whips snow back and forth across the open balcony.  The Beast buries himself deeper into his mangy nest, letting the cold air clean and whisk away the smell of death from the room, and laments that he is unable to rid himself of the lingering taste in his mouth as easily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to post this in two chapters rather than all at once, as both parts stand fairly well on their own. This fic is inspired by _BatB_ producer Don Hahn’s remarks about the psychological affects the enchantment has on the Beast, as well as a scene that was originally included in an early draft of the movie where the Beast was supposed to return to the castle with the carcass of a slain deer to eat, but which in the end was scrapped after being deemed to be too dark. I thought it was such a strong visual that it was a shame to remove it, as I’ve always considered that dark part of the Beast to be part of what makes him so interesting.
> 
>  **The Beast’s Diet (or, “I spent entirely too much time researching this”)** – For anyone interested, I based the Beast’s dietary needs off what information I could find on other large carnivores. Both [this site here](http://home.in.tum.de/~kirsch/jff/disney/physics.htm) and Glen Keane himself peg the Beast’s weight at around 600 lbs, so from there I looked at animals of similar weight such as tigers who consume between 10 – 25 lbs of prey a day (or 4 – 7% of their body weight.) Under that assumption, the Beast would need to eat a whopping 175 lbs per week to keep himself running. Yowzers. Saying that an average female red deer clocks in at about 260 lbs (or just over 200 lbs of meat minus the bones and hide,) and a wild boar or other game animal less so, that would mean he’d need to go hunting at least once every week or so.
> 
> (Not really important, but interesting. Or at least it is if you’re someone who gets excited about story research — which I do. :P Any errors in the calculations above are completely the fault of my own mathematical ineptitude.)
> 
> Feedback is welcome and appreciated!


	2. Bedfellows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to everyone for all the kind words and reviews on the first chapter. This second part goes on a bit of a different route, but was just as fun to write. Enjoy~

The Beast doesn’t sleep very well anymore.  Ever since the curse his nights have become fitful and strained, punctuated by bouts of insomnia and restlessness that drive him up and set him stalking aimlessly up and down the halls for hours as the rest of the castle slumbers.  He rarely dreams, or at least doesn’t remember them, which is all the better because when he does they are full of dark prowling shapes and claws and teeth.

For a change though his sleep that night is uncommonly deep and undisturbed.  When he does eventually wake it is still dark and he has no clue what time it is; all he knows is that it’s late, the wind is still howling and shuddering the windowpanes, and that there is someone there in the room.  The realization dawns slowly as he peels his eyes open and then all at once, and he starts suddenly, sitting up and whipping his head around.

A figure stands at the other end of the room in the center of one open door, peering in tentatively.  Silhouetted by the candle light from the hallway, it casts their face in shadow; but she is given away by the fact that she stands taller than almost every other resident in the castle, and even if that were not the case he would still know her shape, her smell.

“Belle?” he asks softly, surprised.  “What’s wrong?”

Her hand rests lightly on the door frame and her other is wrapped around her waist.  She’s dressed in a long shift of white linen that falls down to her ankles, the front lined with two flowing panels of silk and lace, and her body language reads for a brief moment something like indecision.  The gentle cadence of her voice is carried to him across the dark.  “I can’t sleep,” she answers.

“The storm?”

“Nightmares,” she admits, but doesn’t elaborate, and he doesn’t push.  _(He wonders if she dreams about wolves.  He wonders if she ever dreams about him. . . but he’s not sure if he wants to know or not.)_   There’s a quiet pause, and he’s thinking perhaps he should offer to walk her back to her room, then: “Can I sleep here tonight?”

Silence.  The Beast stares at her dumbly for a few seconds, digesting this request, then with a little shake of his head he snaps back. 

“Sure. . .” he fumbles awkwardly, tripping and stumbling over his own tongue.  “Of course —”

The hallway light disappears as she gently clicks the door shut behind her, and despite feeling rather bleary just seconds ago, he finds himself suddenly very wide awake as she slips across the floor towards him.  His eyes glance furtively away, taking quick stock of their surroundings.  He is relieved to see the plate of meat and bones is already gone, one of his staff no doubt cleaning it away while he slept; however, he is all too aware of the still demolished state of the room after all this time, and he is suddenly ashamed at his ragged little nest, of sleeping on the floor like a dog.  He rubs the back of his neck, grimacing at the mangled remains of the four poster beside him.

“I’m afraid the bed isn’t. . .” he starts to apologize as she approaches, but trails off like smoke from a pinched candle when instead of the bent and doubled mattress she sinks down next to him instead.  He stares at her, struck momentarily baffled.

Irises of green and gold and everything in between regard him steadily, and for a breath they are both completely still.

“Is this okay?” she asks quietly, and beneath the question there is no trace of trepidation or shame.

A lump forms in his throat the size of a cannonball and he swallows and nods.

Her hair is falling loose over her shoulders and her feet are bare.  The respective states of undress they’re both currently in would be enough in any other place at any other time to spur scandalized gawks and whispers by onlookers, but here alone behind the closed doors of the west wing she appears oblivious to such things — drawing herself down to curl right beside him, closer than could possibly be considered decent.  When he shifts back to make more space for her she simply cuddles over further, as if determined to take full advantage of the heat radiating from his body like a warm stove.

After floundering on the spot uncertainly for a minute he finally lays back down, stretching out beside her while trying to maintain a respectable measure of distance between the broad frame of his chest and the graceful sweep of her back.  The makeshift bed he’s made for himself is small though and allows even less maneuvering space for two.  He doesn’t know what to do with his hands — that is until with a boldness that catches the breath in his throat, she reaches over her shoulder and draws his arm up and over, encircling her; effectively closing the remaining gap left between them.  Suddenly he finds his hand planted on her belly, the only safe zone halfway between two points of no man’s land.

The Beast lays stock-still, not daring to move.

His head is swimming.  There’s a sensation something like a slippery fish flip-flopping in the pit of his stomach, and he feels like his heart has stopped: a flightless bird caught in a cage, when in fact it’s hammering like mad.  And yet beside him she is still a picture of calm.  _(How can she be so calm?)_

The storm outside must be dying down because he can’t hear the wind howling as loud as before — or maybe the sound is just muffled from the blood pounding in his ears.  He’s trying to trace a mental path from where he had been hours before, reading next to Belle in front of the fire, to where he is right now; but his brain is not working, choking and sputtering like a steam engine struggling for life.  A part of him is marveling at the way the curves and contours of her fit against his body so perfectly, as oversized and deformed as it is, while the rest him seems to have narrowed into a strange state of tunnel vision: he feels like they are racing forward faster than he can keep up when really they are not moving at all, and it leaves him dry-mouthed and at the same time aching for more.

They lay there wrapped together for a while.  Her breathing has lightened and he thinks she may be asleep save for her shifting position slightly once every so often.  He takes the time to regain control over his breathing once more, to ever so slowly release the tension from his body, bit by bit, limb by limb; until he is loosened enough to bear some passing semblance of calm.

However, the simple sensation of feeling the smooth rise and fall of her stomach beneath his hand still stuns him.  He feels as if he’s been dropped from a great height, or like a rider who’s had his horse’s knees knocked out from underneath him.  It’s a shock to his system.  It has been a decade since he has experienced this level of intimacy with another human soul — perhaps has ever experienced — and he finds himself both thrilled and terrified.

Belle shifts again and in doing so breaks away from him just a little way, unintentionally perhaps, but the hand breadth of empty space and cold air that cascades back between them once again is startling in its intensity.  Whereas a moment before he had faltered at the merest pressure of her body up against him, her absence is now palpable.

The Beast hesitates.  One minute, two.

He knows what he wants to do, but he doesn’t know if he possesses the nerve.  One clawed hand wavers around her middle, jittery and careful as if handling a delicate piece of fine porcelain, afraid of damaging her; and he has to force himself to remember that she is strong and resilient and undeterred, and not so easily breakable.

And so very slowly he pulls her closer, on alert for any barest sign of resistance to signal him to stop, that he has crossed a line, half expecting it in fact — but there's none, and instead she gives simply a soft little sigh as she is pressed back up against him and the sound is music in his ears.

He releases a long, slow breath he didn’t even know he had been holding, and inclines his head to gently bury his nose in her hair.  Her smell is a rich flood of rose water and cinnamon, bound paper stories, and clear spring mornings after rain.  With one fluid wave it’s enough to dissolve all the remaining stiffness from his body, and he finally melts into her. 

The two of them lay there in the dark spooning together like two unlikely but perfectly matched puzzle pieces, wrapped in a snug, shabby little nest of his own mangled past and shredded memories.  Oblivious to the howling of the wind that seems so very far away now, or the biting snow that blows in off the balcony on the cold air, he closes his eyes — the scent of her filling his nose and warming him through as they drift off in nothing but the light of a magic rose.

 

 

When he wakes up next it’s already morning.  The storm has passed and the room is bathed in a soft, diffused amber glow of early sunlight save for their little shaded corner of the floor on the opposite side of the bed.  Sometime through the night Belle has rolled around to face him — the Beast opens his eyes to find her fingers curled in the fur on his chest and her head buried in the nook under his chin, little flyaway strands of her long hair tickling his beard.

He’s not sure what surprises him more: this unprepared new closeness of her or the fact that she’s still there.

He doesn’t know what he expected.  To wake and find her gone, perhaps; of her realizing with sudden horror her mistake and stealing away as soon as he nodded off — but she didn’t, she’s _here_ , and the inexplicable truth of it makes a little bead of warmth spread through his core and tugs the corners of his lips into the faintest smile.

Pressed right up to him, he can feel every breath in her chest rise against his own and each gentle exhale that stirs the hair of his mane.  In her sleep a sleeve has slipped down exposing a cream shoulder and her chemise has ridden up on one leg, and for a fleeting instant he wonders what it would be like to pull those thin layers of silk and lace off and have the touch of her bare skin underneath; but it’s a passing reverie only and with just a little effort he moves past it, content with all he has and all she is offering in that moment.

His one arm is still wrapped around her, having never moved at all throughout the night; but he becomes aware of a numbness in his other one, a dull dead weight after being pinned beneath him for so long.  Moving as little as possible, he shifts his weight a bit and blood rushes back to the trapped limb, all pins and needles.  Despite his care though, the small motion rouses her: she stirs and for a second he tenses, thinking any moment she’s going to flush with embarrassment and pull away — but instead, all she does is release a drawn-out, sleepy sigh.

“M’ feet are cold. . .” she murmurs, and with a lazy toe she hooks and pulls the end of a blanket up over them both.  Like a badger in a burrow, her feet search him out, winding around and in between his own long, wolfish hind limbs; taking advantage of the soft, warm fur covering them to bury her toes in and he is unable to restrain a light chuckle.  He can see the tops of her cheeks pinch up in a smile.

The feeling of so much of her tangled up against him at once is electrifying.  It breaks down a final wall and the last of his apprehension, and forgetting all remaining sense of propriety, he gently snakes his other hand up around her waist and gathers her up in his thick arms, and he is no longer startled by how naturally she settles into them.

There’s a sense of some quiet, perfect calm as they lay wound together in the early morning glow; Belle dozing lightly and the Beast tracing circles on the small of her back with the base of his thumb and a feather light claw, thinking that at that exact moment he has never felt so at peace, that he has never felt so. . . human.  And for a flickering moment, he believes he truly can be saved.

And then something happens: some subtle change, the wind switching direction.  Riding in on the crisp air comes the scent of pine needles and soil from the forest — and underneath it, the foul smell of something like fresh carrion.

All of a sudden he can hear the slap and splash of feet over the moist ground, a frenzied flee of the pursued, the chase, and his heart rate jumps and quickens.

A taste, bitter and metallic, rises in the back of his mouth.  His vision sharpens, there is the coiling of muscle, along with a rush of input in his ears and to his nose.  Her scent that had before soothed and lulled him incites his nostrils anew, rousing him, goading him, and he can’t think — the feeling of her brushing against him raises every hair on his body in a furious adrenaline-filled torrent, a million nerve endings on fire.

By instinct his grip on her tightens sharply, a gentle embrace becoming a squeeze like an iron vice, winding her in between massive arms that can crush the air from lungs and snap bones like dry timber.  A small, startled exclamation escapes from her and she stiffens suddenly like a rabbit.  It turns his breathing rapid, excited — _(he can’t think he can’t think)_ — and the barest growl emits from somewhere low inside, a deep guttural rumble that starts in his chest and slips between his barred teeth as his lips pull back.

She makes a sound, cries out perhaps, but he can’t hear her for the dull roaring in his ears and synapses firing in his brain; and when she moves and tries to suddenly, frantically push away, he’s on her. 

Claws pierce flesh and the delicate little figure beneath him bucks; tiny hands and feet beat and kick against him wildly, wreathing, thrashing — but he’s ripping and shredding and tearing and she’s _screaming_ , and amid his frenzy he glimpses flashes of two horror-stricken, big, black eyes staring back at him from under long lashes, wide and glassy and empty — and then his jaws are snapping down _snap snap SNAP_ and they wrench and shake violently back and forth back and forth until the hot coppery taste fills his nose and is in his mouth and from somewhere somehow there’s still _screaming_ —

The Beast’s eyes fly open and he bolts awake with a terrifying bellow.

It is still night.  The storm is still howling and raging outside, and he is still alone in the darkness and gloom of the west wing.

He gulps down deep, ragged, gasping lungfuls of air; chest heaving as his eyes fly wildly around the room, down beside him, down at his hands.  Empty, all empty.  The plate of bones and meat scraps from earlier is still sitting where he left it on the floor beside the little table supporting the glass bell jar.

The echo of the screams is still ringing in his ears.  Not even when he shuts his eyes and buries his face in his hands can he rid himself of it — the memory of the taste of her in his mouth and the feeling of skin tearing like paper — and he turns and throws up on the floor.  He retches again and again until he’s left there dry heaving and shaking and there’s nothing left remaining inside him save the remnants of a nightmare and the reminder of the monster laying deep within. . . still hungry, always there, rattling against his bones.

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just love playing in the Beast’s headspace, as dark as it is sometimes, the poor guy. (Someday I swear I’ll write something where he isn't being so constantly emotionally and mentally beaten around.) As always, feedback is welcome and appreciated, and please feel free to check out my other _BatB_ fic on my profile.


End file.
